The Words of Thomas Sowell

We seem to be getting closer and closer to a situation where nobody is responsible for what they did but we are all responsible for what somebody else did.

— Ever Wonder Why? And Other Controversial Essays (2006), p. 454

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Among the people appointed as czars by President Obama have been people who have praised enemy dictators like Mao, or who have seen the public schools as places to promote sexual practices contrary to the values of most Americans, to a captive audience of children. Those who say that the Obama administration should have investigated those people more thoroughly before appointing them are missing the point completely. Why should we assume that Barack Obama didn’t know what such people were like, when he has been associating with precisely these kinds of people for decades before he reached the White House? Nothing is more consistent with his lifelong patterns than putting such people in government—people who reject American values, resent Americans in general and successful Americans in particular, as well as resenting America’s influence in the world.

— Dismantling America: And Other Controversial Essays (2010), p. 6-7

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People who speak disdainfully of 'menial' jobs probably have no idea how many millionaires and even billionaires began working in such jobs. The political left is so wedded to their assumption that people stay in their 'class' that it would never occur to them to check out the hard facts.

— Random Thoughts (2001)

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Perhaps the most dangerous ‘favor’ done to blacks has been the making of excuses for all their problems. All human beings are so imperfect, no matter what color wrapping they come in, that to exempt any group from the standards of performance and behavior expected of others is not a blessing but a curse. Many white liberals have adopted blacks as mascots, in order to ‘make a statement’ against American society. But mascots are only symbols — and their well-being is seldom a top priority.

— Barbarians Inside the Gates and Other Controversial Essays (1999)

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There are few things more dishonorable than misleading the young.

— Controversial Essays (2002)

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In the academic world, diversity means black leftists, white leftists, female leftists, and Hispanic leftists. Demographic diversity conceals ideological conformity.

— Controversial Essays (2002)

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Freedom has cost too much blood and agony to be relinquished at the cheap price of rhetoric.

— Knowledge and Decisions (1980)

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The endlessly repeated argument that most Americans are the descendants of immigrants ignores the fact that most Americans are NOT the descendants of ILLEGAL immigrants.

— Immigration and Illegal Immigration (2006)

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Competition does a much more effective job than government at protecting consumers.

— Compassion Versus Guilt and other Essays (1985)

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Degrees show that you have knowledge in some special area. Too often they embolden people to pontificate on a wide range of other subjects where they don’t know what they are talking about.

— The Thomas Sowell Reader (2011)

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Whether blatant or subtle, brainwashing has become a major, time-consuming activity in American education at all levels. Some zealots have not hesitated to use the traditional brain-washing technique of emotional trauma in the classroom to soften up children for their message. Gruesome and graphic movies on nuclear war, for example, have reduced some school children to tears—after which the teacher makes a pitch for whatever movement claims to reduce such dangers. Another technique is the ambush shock: A seventh-grade teacher in Manhattan, for example, innocently asked her students to discuss their future plans—after which she said: ‘Haven’t any of you realized that in this world with nuclear weapons no one in this class will be alive in the year 2000?’

— Inside American Education (1993), Ch. 1

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Some things are believed because they are demonstrably true. But many other things are believed simply because they have been asserted repeatedly—and repetition has been accepted as a substitute for evidence.

— Economic Facts and Fallacies (2008)

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Many on the political left are so entranced by the beauty of their vision that they cannot see the ugly reality they are creating in the real world.

— Random Thoughts (2001)

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So many idealistic political movements for a better world have ended in mass-murdering dictatorships. Giving leaders enough power to create ‘social justice’ is giving them enough power to destroy all justice, all freedom, and all human dignity.

— Controversial Essays (2002)

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Libertarians seem to have this atomistic view of the world, which I think is completely unrealistic, because not only in my life, but in the lives of people around me, the surroundings make a huge difference.

— The Rubin Report Interview with Thomas Sowell (2018)

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People who pride themselves on their "complexity" and deride others for being "simplistic" should realize that the truth is often not very complicated. What gets complex is evading the truth.

— The Thomas Sowell Reader (2011)

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Those who want to see quality education remain available to youngsters in low-income minority neighborhoods must raise the question, again and again, when various policies and practices are proposed: 'How is this going to affect the education of children?' Surprisingly large proportion of policies and practices cannot answer that question.

— Charter Schools and Their Enemies (2020)

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The biggest hypocrites on gun control are those who live in upscale developments with armed security guards – and who want to keep other people from having guns to defend themselves. But what about lower-income people living in high-crime, inner city neighborhoods? Should such people be kept unarmed and helpless, so that limousine liberals can ’make a statement’ by adding to the thousands of gun laws already on the books?

— Gunning for guns (1999)

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When the only external validation for an individual is what other individuals believe, everything depends on who those other individuals are. If they are simply people who are like-minded in general, then the consensus of the group about a new idea depends on what the group already believes in general—and says nothing about the empirical validity of that idea in the external world.

— Intellectuals and Society (2009)

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How are children supposed to learn to act like adults, when so much of what they see on television shows adults acting like children?

— Random Thoughts (2001)

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